JOHN HARVARD'S LIFE 
IN AMERICA 



OR 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE IN 

NEW ENGLAND IN 

1637-1638 



BY 



ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS 



JOHN HARVARD'S LIFE 
IN AMERICA 

OR 

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE IN 

NEW ENGLAND IN 

I 637-1 638 



BY 



ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS 

n 



REPRINTED FROM 

THE PUBLICATIONS 

OF 

€lje Colonial ^ociec^ of 2r?a00acl)ufifetw 
Vol. XII 



CAMBRIDGE 

JOHN WILSON AND SON 

Kniijwsitg Press 

1908 



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ittorloBii HtetorlcBl EaWov, 



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JOHN HARVARD'S LIFE IN AMERICA 



JOHN HARVARD'S LIFE IN AMERICA, 
OR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 

IN 1637-1638.^ 

The subject treated in this paper practically deals with the condi- 
tions of Harvard's life for a single year. Even this brief time cannot 
be restricted within exact limits. We do not know the date of Har- 
vard's sailing from England. We do not know on what day he arrived 
in the Colony. The only date in this connection of which we are cer- 
tain is, alas ! that of his death, and for that knowledge we are depend- 
ent upon a casual entry in an almanac.^ His name is not mentioned 
by Winthrop in his Journal and, except for a memorandum found 
among Winthrop's papers and published by Savage in the Addenda to 
the Journal,^ we should not know that the Governor had ever heard 
of him. In justice, however, to Winthrop it should be added that the 
mere existence of the memorandum suggests that it was made with 
intent to incorporate its substance in the Journal, and then by over- 
sight the entry was omitted. 

The various contemporaneous publications which mention Har- 
vard's name, while they speak of him as a scholarly and pious man, 
add nothing to our knowledge of his life, and it is not until we reach 
the verbose and pedantic Magnalia of Cotton INIather that we learn 
from one who wrote sixty years after Harvard's death, that the disease 
which carried him off was consumption.* When Mather wrote, the 
College had already acquired renown. Increase Mather, the father 
of the author of Magnalia, was glad, when the occasion came his 
way, to assume charge of its affairs, and he availed himself of the op- 
portunity to acquire from his Alma Mater the degree of D.D.* Cotton 

' This paper was originally prepared to be read as a part of the memorial exer- 
cises at Cambridge which were held under the auspices of the Harvard Memorial 
Society, in honor of the three hundredth anniversary of Harvard's birth. The 
material then collated relative to the construction of houses, etc., when worked 
into shape proved to be far in excess of the demands for the occasion, so that the 
paper had to be much abridged in reading ; but in submitting it to the Colonial 
Society with a view to publication, the rejected matter has been restored. 

* Winthrop's Journal, ii. 88, note by Savage. 
' Ibid. ii. 342. 

* Magnalia (1853), ii. 10. 

* Cotton Mather gives his father's argument in full, as to the power of the 
College to confer degrees, in Magnalia, ii. 19, 20, and the degree itself, ii. 26. 



1908] THE DATE OF HARVARD'S VOYAGE 5 

Mather himself is supposed to have aspired to the Presidency of the 
College of which he also was a graduate. This testimony to the high 
estimate of the institution at that time by the Mathers was not perhaps 
needed, but its recital will bring before us the important fact that the 
author of Magnalia, when he omitted John Harvard from the list 
of worthies whose lives he undertook to write, and contented himself 
with a mere reference to him in his description of the College, must 
have been conscious of his offence. 

A tithe of the diligence which he bestowed in gleaning facts about 
the lives of the governors, the clergymen of New England, and the 
Harvard graduates, would have enabled him to preserve upon his 
pages many facts concerning the Charlestown life of the founder of the 
College which we should treasure to-day. The only new item con- 
cerning Harvard himself to be obtained from Magnalia is that which 
I have quoted. It must be added, however, that the author states 
the amount of Harvard's bequest to the College in pounds, shillings 
and pence; that he speaks of Harvard as a minister of the Gospel, 
and that he prints an elegiac poem by John Wilson which, although it 
contains some errors of statement, is nevertheless helpful.^ 

For what information Mather gave, let us be thankful, and from 
that let us turn to what we can positively ascertain from the records, 
and what we may infer from current history. 

Harvard's presence in England February the sixteenth, 1637, can 
be demonstrated. On the fifth of May of the same year the will of 
his brother Thomas, of which he was one of the executors, was duly 
probated. The will was allowed and power to execute it was conferred 
upon his co-executor, with a reservation of like power for Harvard 
"when he should come to seek it." The inference is plain that he was 
not on hand to resign the executorship, and the presumption is that 
this absence was to be explained by the fact that between February 
sixteenth and May fifth he had sailed for New England. 

On the other hand, the Charlestown Records bear testimony to his 
presence in that place on the first of August of the same year, when he. 
was admitted a townsman.^ It is quite certain that this affiliation with 
the settlers — a necessary concomitant at that time for the residence 
in Charlestown of one of his profession — must have been taken 

• Magnalia, ii. 10, 30. 

" Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, vol. iii. p. iv. 



6 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

promptly after arrival. There was a statute of the General Court 
then in force which prevented inhabitants of any of the towns from 
harboring for a longer period than three weeks, strangers who 
came with intent to reside, except under allowance of certain desig- 
nated authorities.* Obviously, newly arrived immigrants would, if 
their consciences permitted, hasten to put themselves on record as 
being in sympathy with the governing f)owers. It is safe, therefore, to 
assert that Harvard must have arrived at Charlestown in the latter 
part of July, 1637. Assuming that he sailed early in May, this would 
make his voyage cover a period of about twelve weeks. This would 
not have been considered a very long ocean trip in those days. Hence, 
we may rest assured that this estimate of the time of sailing and 
arrival is reasonably close, so that the discovery of the name of the 
vessel in which he sailed and the publication of her log would not alter 
materially our conception of the dates connected with the voyage. The 
third of these dates, that of his death, is fixed at September 14, 1638. 
The entire term of his life in America was, therefore, about thirteen 
and one-half months. 

About four weeks after his arrival, on the thirtieth of August, 1637, 
a Synod was held at Cambridge — or Newtown, as it was then 
called. We are told that " all the teaching Elders through the Country 
were present, and some new come out from England, not yet called to 
any place here." ^ The meeting is described as having been "peace- 
able and concluded comfortably in love." We may infer from the 
stress put upon these words that this conclusion was probably unex- 
pected. Harvard was at that time "new come out from England," 
and it is quite certain that he could not then have been called to any 
place here. The statement that some of those similarly situated with 
himself were present at the Synod is practically equivalent to saying 
that he was there. No newly arrived clergyman whose health and cir- 
cumstances permitted could have failed to avail himself of the oppor- 
tunity to meet there the assembled pastors of the Colony, and to hear 
them discuss the doctrinal points which were disturbing themselves 
and their congregations. It necessarily follows that he must at that 
time have seen the spot with which his name has since become so con- 
spicuously associated. His route from Charlestown to Cambridge 

' Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 196. 
» Winthrop's Journal, i. 237. 



1908] harvard's visit TO CAMBRIDGE 7 

would have been by the path called in the early Cambridge Records 
" the Way to Charlestown." If we accept President Wadsworth's loca- 
tion within the Yard of the lot granted by the town to the College, 
which was said in the town records to be north of the " Way to Charles- 
town," we must reach the conclusion that Harvard's path, if he came 
to Cambridge to the Synod, led him through the Ox Pasture to the 
Common — or if he were to cover the same ground to-day, directly 
through the heart of the College Yard into Harvard Square by way of 
the Johnston Gate.* Cambridge was described by a contempora- 
neous writer as like a " bowling green," and we can fancy the pleasure 
which he derived from contemplating the beauties of the scene, as he 
strode or rode along, — for he probably came over from Charlestown 
either on foot or on horseback, and perhaps as he looked around his 
mental vision conjured up a future College there. The site had not 
then been selected, but it was voted a few weeks thereafter that it 
should be Newtown, showing that attention had already been turned 
that way. 

If by any unfortunate chance he was prevented from visiting Cam- 
bridge on the occasion of the Synod, still, he must have seen the little 
village on the second of November of that year, when he and four 
others, at a session of the General Court at that place, were admitted 
as freemen, and as the record goes on to state "took the freeman's 
oath." ^ Four days after this event Harvard and his wife were 
admitted to membership in the Charlestown Church,^ thus com- 
pleting the essential acts on his part for admission to the elect in 
Massachusetts by becoming successively — townsman — freeman — 
churchman. 

Having taken these preliminary steps, he could now attend to his 
own affairs with a reasonable assurance of being let alone. It is not 

' In "The Site of the First College Building at Cambridge," in the Proceedings 
of the American Antiquarian Society for October, 1888, the "Way to Charles- 
town " is identified with lurkland Street, and the inference is drawn that the 
town grant was north of Krkland Street, as it is now laid out. There can be but 
little doubt that Kirkland Street represents the "Way to Charlestown," but 
whether the way was not from time to time removed from place to place is an- 
other question. President Wadsworth's location of the town grant within the 
Yard shows his opinion, and my own later views are expressed in "The College 
in Early Days," in the Harvard Graduates' Magazine for April, 1893. 

^ Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 206. 

^ Records of the First Church in Charlestown, Boston, 1880, p. 9. 



8 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

surprising, therefore, to find that he disappears from pubhc notice 
until the next spring, and ahhough we know absolutely nothing of 
what he was doing during that period, it may be assumed that his first 
efforts were put forth toward providing a permanent residence in 
Charlestown for himself and his wife. It is not known when he became 
associated as a colleague with Zachariah Symmes, the pastor of the 
Charlestown Church, but it is not unlikely to have followed promptly 
the various steps which he had taken to identify himself with the town 
and the church. 

In April, 1638, he had become sufficiently well knovm to his fellow- 
townsmen to receive at their hands an appointment as one of a com- 
mittee of six who were "desired to consider of some things tending 
toward a body of laws." ' His selection upon such a committee as this 
indicates that he had not yet succumbed to the inroads of the disease 
which carried him off a few months thereafter, and also helps to de- 
fine his position upon a question which was then puzzhng the brains 
of those who were administering the affairs of the Colony. 

I have spoken of his ofiBcial relations with the Charlestown parish 
as though it were positively known that such relations existed. As a 
matter of fact, there is no contemporaneous entry in the Church 
records which refers to Harvard's connection with the parish as teach- 
ing elder or clergyman. In 1789, the then pastor of the Church made 
an entry to that effect.^ This accords with the statements of contem- 
porary authors, and its place in the parish records gives it a quasi 
official character. Frothingham quotes apparently from the town 
records the phrase "Sometime Minister of God's word here," applied 
to Harvard.^ The learned author of Magnalia quotes an elegy 
from the pen of the Rev. John Wilson — a clergyman who was settled 
over the First Church in Boston at the time when Harvard was in 
Charlestown — which was addressed "to the most pious and reverend 
John Harvard, borne from the sacred desk at Charlestown to the 
skies." * 

' "The 26 of the ii. month" (Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, vol. iii. 
p. iv.). 

* Records of the First Church in CharlestowTi, p. 165. 

* Frotliingham's History of Charlestown, p. 74. 

* In Pientissimum, Reverendissimumque virum, Johannem Harvardum, 6 
euggestio Sacro Carolocnsi ad ccelos evcctum (Magnalia, ii. 33). 






1908] harvard's property IN CHARLESTOWN 9 

This makes it sure that Harvard was settled over the Charlestown 
parish at the time of his death, and renders it probable that he preached 
in the Great House originally built for Winthrop, but sold by him for 
£10 to the town for a meeting-house.* 

The statement is made that Harvard was allotted land and that he 
built a house in Charlestown, and Frothingham distinctly asserts that 
he participated in the allotments of 1637-1638.^ It happens that the 
folio in the Book of Possessions at Charlestown, which through index 
entries is known to have contained a record of Harvard's estate, is 
missing.^ It is the only folio in the book that is gone, and since it is of 
more value to the world than all the rest of the book, we can only won- 
der at the unlucky chance which should have selected that particular 
leaf for destruction. Notwithstanding the loss of this desirable source 
of information, the Book of Possessions furnishes abundant evidence 
that Harvard was a land-owner, and not only that, but it is plain that 
his holdings of real estate were extensive. We gain this information 
through the definitions of the boundaries of the property of others. 
Harvard's name appears in the Book of Possessions upwards of 
twenty times as an abutter. His widow figures five or six times in a 
similar way, sometimes as Widow Harvard, sometimes as Mrs. Ann 
Harvard. 

Through these descriptions the general location of the property can 
be identified and in some cases its character is evident. Some of it 
was in Mystic field, some in Water field, some in East field, some in 
Line field, i. e. in a field adjoining the Cambridge line. Some of it was 
in the Mystic marshes. The various grants or purchases, for we have 
no evidence how the property was acquired, comprised woodland, 
arable land, meadow and marshes. In one of these abutting descrip- 
tions describing the adjoining land is this phrase : "120 acres of land, 
more or less, situated in Waterfield, bought of Mrs. Harvard, and 
entered before in her name." In another, the words are : "Ten acres 
firstly appertaining to Mr. John Harvard." It is, therefore, evident 

• Frothingham's History of Charlestown, p. 55. 

^ Frothingham further says that in another division his lot was nearly a third 
larger than that of Mr. Symmes, and adds that on November 27, 1637, he had a 
grant of three and a half feet of ground for a poWal (History of Charlestown, 
p. 74). 

' Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, vol. iii. p. iv. 



10 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

that, however acquired, whether by grant or by purchase, Harvard 
must have had a good deal of land within the limits of Charlestown. 
As to the house in which he lived, we have this to guide us. In Jan- 
uary, 1697, Judge Sewall spent the night in Charlestown, and he re- 
cords the fact that Mrs. Shepherd told him that the house in which he 
slept was built by John Harvard.^ IVIrs. Shepherd was the wife of the 
clergyman then settled over the Charlestown parish. Her say-so 
would not necessarily be final in determining whether Harvard had 
ever lived in the house, were it not that she acquired the property from 
Mrs. Thomas Allen. Mrs. Allen was Harvard's widow, and Allen had 
himself been settled over the Charlestown parish, having probably 
succeeded Harvard in his functions as clergyman or teacher, as 
he certainly did as husband of Ann Sadler, Harvard's widow. He 
is undoubtedly the Allen whose name appears in the records of 
the College as having paid £200 to Eaton, and with whom a 
committee was appointed by the College in 1643 to effect a final 
settlement of the bequest.^ Unquestionably this sum was from 
Harvard's estate, of which he was executor or administrator. The 
line of evidence that connects Harvard with the house in which 
Sewall slept is therefore fairly direct, and is not open to dispute. 
The site of the house is well known. The assertion that Harvard 
built it may perhaps have been an interpolation of Sewall 's, al- 
though there is no special reason for this suggestion. The state- 
ment is not in itself improbable. Immigration was active at that 
time. There were not enough houses to accommodate those who 
arrived. The advice given by Higginson, writing from Salem a 
few years before, was still applicable: 

No man hath or can have a house built for him, unless he come 
himself or else sends servants before to do it for him.' 

The one chance that intervenes to throw a possible doubt upon 
Harvard's having built his house, is that he might have purchased 
it. The colonists were a restless set and transfers of houses are of 
frequent record. The missing folio in the Book of Possessions would 
probably have settled this question. 

» Diary, i. 446, 447. 

' Quincy's History of Harvard University, i. 48, facsimile of the record. 

' Hutcliinson's Collection of Original Papers, p. 49. 



1908] POLITICAL CONDITIONS AT HARVARD'S ARRIVAL 11 

A landholder and a householder — we might perhaps have doubted 
whether the victim of pulmonary consumption in the fall of 163S would 
in the winter of 1637-1638 have been strong enough to build a house, 
were it "not for the quotation from the record to which I have already re- 
ferred, which shows that his fellow-townsmen considered him in the 
latter part of April, 1638, in fit condition to serve upon a committee, 
the importance of which can only be estimated by an examination of 
the politics of the Colony at that time. As briefly as may be let us 
review the facts which led up to the political conditions at the time of 
Harvard's arrival. Let us see who was then in power and who it was 
that was to be opposed by this committee who were "to consider some 
things tending towards a body of laws for the Colony." 

When Endicott came over here with his group of emigrants, he 
came as a member of the Church of England, with no intimation that 
the hostility to the formalities of the church which prompted this emi- 
gration would lead to separation from the Mother Church. He was 
at the head of affairs in the Colony and may perhaps properly be 
termed Governor of the Colony, although the Governor of the Com- 
pany was at that time in London. 

When Winthrop arrived he brought with him the Charter and a 
commission which placed him at the head of the Colony as well as of 
the Company. Endicott had before Winthrop's arrival already thrown 
off his allegiance to the Church of England by eliminating the ritual 
and had actually banished two prominent men, members of the Com- 
pany, because they were not willing to abandon altogether the use of 
the Prayer Book in the Church service.' 

Winthrop probably knew of this arbitrary and important proceed- 
ing, when on the seventh of April, 1630, on board the Arbella he, with 
others, addressed an open letter "to the rest of their brethren in and 
of the Church of England,"^ in which they said "we beseech you 
therefore by the mercies of the Lord Jesus to consider us as your 
brethren, standing in very great need of your helpe, and earnestly 
imploring it." "We beseech you," they further said, "to pray for us 
without ceasing (who are a weake colony from yourselves) making 
continual request for us in your prayers." 

^ Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 408 ; Palfrey's History of New England, i. 
298; Neal's History of New England, i. 129, 1.30. 

'Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts (1795), i. 431. 



12 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

They then went on to intimate that there might be some of the 
brethren who would not have a clear intelligence of their course or 
tenderness of affection towards them. Such as felt that way were 
entreated not to despise the colonists, and their compassion was be- 
sought. In other words, while still claiming to be members of the 
Church, the knowledge of the imminence of the break is evident in 
this letter. The pretence that no separation was intended was 
maintained even after the election of John Wilson as their teacher. 
Winthrop says: 

We used imposition of hands, but with this protestation by all, that 
it was only as a sign of election and confirmation, not of any intent 
that Mr. Wilson should renounce his ministry he received in England.* 

Whether Endicott's act of secession was approved at the time or 
not, no step back was ever taken to check its effects, and the Puritan 
emigrants became practically Separatists and their church a Congre- 
gational Church.^ It was, then, to a Colony dominated by a Congre- 
gational Church that Harvard knowingly turned his footsteps.^ 

Winthrop was elected Governor after his arrival in 1630 for three 
consecutive years, 1631-1G33. Then dissatisfaction with his rule led 
to his overthrow, and during the next three years experiments were 
made with weaker men. Thomas Dudley, John Haynes, and Henry 
Vane were the successive Governors during these years. 

The last of these, when he arrived in the Colony, bore the prestige of 
an honored name, his father Sir Henry Vane being at that time a dis- 
tinguished man, holding high office in England. Although the son 
on reaching New England in the fall of 1635 was not yet twenty- 
five years of age, he was almost at once selected as a suitable candi- 
date for the highest office in the Colony — as one around whom the 

' Journal, i. 33. 

* Winthrop, writing in 1633 of the proceedings against Saltonstall, Humphry, 
and Cradock, says that "the defendants were dismissed with a favorable order 
for their encouragement, being assured by some of the Council, that his Majesty 
did not intend to impose the ceremonies of the Church of England upon us; for 
that it was considered that it was the freedom from such things that made people 
come over to us" (Journal, i. 103). 

* His description in his mother's will as "clarke " and in his marriage licence 
as "clicum," carries with it the probability that he was ordained in the Anglicaa 
Church. 



1908] CONTEST BETWEEN VANE AND WINTHROP 13 

discontents could rally — and at the next election he was duly elected 
Governor. It was during his term of office that Mrs. Hutchinson held 
the series of meetings at her house in Boston, which resulted in her 
being tried the next year for heresy and sentenced to banishment from 
the Colony. Strongly in sympathy with her were John Cotton, prob- 
ably the most distinguished preacher in Boston at that time, and John 
Wheelwright. The latter was banished as a result of his adherence to 
his opinions, but the former when interrogated as to his support of the 
doctrines of Mrs. Hutchinson, so far hedged that he avoided the same 
fate. During these proceedings all Boston was in a turmoil of excite- 
ment, and while it was at its height Vane's term of office expired. At 
the new election he was turned down; the old regime of Winthrop 
was restored ; and Vane was humiliated by being dropped out of the 
magistracy.^ 

It will readily be understood that an election held under these 
conditions could not be entirely free from fears of disturbance. Vane's 
support for re-election came mainly from Boston. Winthrop who op- 
posed him relied upon the country, and as he feared interference on 
the part of the people of Boston if the election should be held in that 
place he secured the passage of an order that the Court for that pur- 
pose should be held at Cambridge. 

The accounts of the election itself strongly suggest a situation cor- 
responding in many points with that which occurred at Springfield at 
a recent nominating convention. Perhaps the language of one of the 
chroniclers of the event, himself a candidate at the time, will more 
clearly portray the fact that politics have not changed much since 
1637: 

There was great danger of a tumult that day, for those of that side 
grew into fierce speeches, and some laid hands on others; but seeing 
themselves too weak, they grew quiet.^ 

Vane, fresh from the pomp of the English Court, had been in the 
habit of marching to church on Sundays with an escort of four ser- 

» Winthrop's Journal, i. 219, 220. 

* Ibid. i. 220. The proceedings this day were replete with interest. Win- 
throp baffled Vane's attempt at delay and finally compelled him against his 
will to proceed with the election by threatening to assume charge of the meet- 
ing himself, if Vane would not yield to the desires of the majority. 



14 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

geants bearing halberds. These sergeants were all supporters of Vane, 
and when Winthrop, the new Governor, sought their escort, they re- 
fused to give it.' 

The tumultuous election followed by the petty insult of the ser- 
geants to the new Governor, were evidence enough of the bitterness 
of the contest, but to make more significant the fact that Win- 
throp had lost his hold upon the affections of the people of Boston, 
they immediately elected Vane a deputy. This election Was dis- 
allowed by the General Court, and a new election ordered. Again 
Vane was elected, and this time he was permitted to serve, "the 
Court not finding how they might reject him" as Winthrop naively 
remarks.^ 

One other incident which happened that summer illustrates the 
intensity of personal animosity engendered by these quarrels. In 
June there arrived Lord Ley, then a young man of about twenty 
years of age, the son and heir of the Earl of Marlborough. He took 
lodgings in a common inn and declined the courteous invitation of 
Governor Winthi'op to make his headquarters at the Governor's 
house. In the early part of July, the Governor extended to Lord Ley 
an invitation to dine, and in a friendly way tendered the same cour- 
tesy to Vane. He records that they both not only refused to come, 
but at the same hour went over to Noddle's Island to dine with 
Mr. Maverick.3 

These proceedings made evident to Winthrop and his followers 
that the great immigration to the Colony, notwithstanding the limi- 
tation of the franchise to freemen, was undermining their power. 
To render doubly secure the limitations already imposed, and to 
perpetuate them through control over temporary as well as perma- 
nent residents, the Act was passed which has already been referred 
to, imposing h penalty on all those who should harbor strangers for 
over three weeks, unless they were properly endorsed by the desig- 
nated authorities. Already the efforts to protect the community from 
the evil effects of heretical doctrines by the banishment or disfran- 
chisement of their exponents had furnished abundant ground for the 
charge of intolerance. The passage of this Act testified to the justice 
of the charge. Boston was the place of landing for those who were to 
be affected by it, and Boston was, indignant. When the Court then 

> Winthrop's Journal, i. 220. ' Ibid. i. 220. » Ibid., i. 232. 



1908] JOHN harvard's SHARE IN THE POLITICAL TURMOIL 15 

in session at Cambridge adjourned, and Winthrop returned to his 
home, his neighbors, instead of turning out to receive the Governor 
and escort him to his house, "refused to go out to meet him or show 
him any respect." * Hutchinson records that at this session an Act 
was passed disqualifying any person from acting as Governor until 
he had been in the Colony a full year.^ This was, of course, a hit 
at Vane, and doubtless had to do with the reception of Winthrop on 
his return home. The Governor had, however, prevailed, and a few 
days after Harvard's arrival in the Colony, Vane, defeated and humili- 
ated, folded his tent, went on board ship, and sailed for England. 

If I have succeeded in conveying even a faint conception of the 
political tumult in Massachusetts in the fall of 1637, it will be 
appreciated that when Harvard landed he must at once have realized 
how difficult it would be for any person who intended residing any- 
where near Boston to avoid taking part in this contest. The defeated 
Vane was to the last the recipient of honors from his supporters. 
They followed him to his ship in great numbers, and if Harvard 
himself did not see, as he may have done, this popular demon- 
stration in Vane's favor, he must at least have heard the volleys of 
musketry and the thunder of the ordnance, discharged from shore 
and even from the Castle,^ which announced to those in the neigh- 
borhood, whether actually present at the scene or not, that the person 
thus honored was about to depart from this shore. Contemporary 
opinion as to Vane's departure may be inferred from a line from 
Johnson : 

With small defeat, thou didst retreat to Brittaine ground againe.* 

Up to that time the government of the Colony had been carried 
on under the general powers conferred in the Charter, through the 
General Court; through the oversight of the affairs of the towns by 
officers selected by the townsmen, who were oftentimes forced by 

* Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, i. 64. Winthrop's account is: 
"None of them met him & the Sergeants who had escorted the former Governor 
refused to perform that service for iiim alleging that such service had been per- 
formed on account of the man not the place" (Journal, i. 234). 

' Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, i. 65. 

* Winthrop's Journal, i. 235. 

* Wonder-working Providence (1867), p. 72. 



16 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

penalties, to undertake their duties of office; and through Church 
discipHne. A few statutes had been passed, some of them however 
being only temporary in their nature. Justices of the peace had been 
appointed who had like powers given them with those in England 
for the reformation of abuses and punishment of offenders,* and with 
the increasing population sessions of quarter courts had been insti- 
tuted. Wages had been fixed. Prices on certain articles had been 
restricted. Sumptuary legislation had been instituted.^ Offenders 
who had committed offences which had been for all time recognized 
in England as crimes were punished, the penalties being apparently 
fixed arbitrarily by the Court of Assistants and in some cases offences 
were treated as seditious and criminal which it would be difficult to 
classify under an ordinary criminal code. For instance, Philip Rat- 
clyfe was ordered to be whipped, to have his ears cut off, to be fined 
£40, and to be banished out of this jurisdiction, for uttering mali- 
cious and scandalous speeches against the government And the 
Church of Salem.^ 

It will not be wondered at that the people were restless under this 
condition of affairs. They clamored for a code of laws. They wanted 
the government organized. They were not content merely with the 
General Court of the Company under the Charter, but they wanted 
some definition to be given of the rights of individuals; of property 
rights ; of crimes, and of penalties. This was the spirit that prompted 
the formation of the committee of the Charlestown townsmen of which 
Harvard was a member. But this did not correspond with the views 
of John Winthrop, who had just dethroned and humiliated Vane 
and driven him from the Colony ; who at the expense of great turbu- 
lence in Boston had succeeded in causing the banishment of ]\Irs. 
Hutcliinson and Wheelwright, and in effecting the disarmament of 

• Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 74. 

» Ibid. i. 74, 76, 77, 79, 91, 109, 160 (wages); 126, 183 (sumptuary laws). 

' Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 88. Thomas Dexter was in March, 1632-33, 
6et in the bilboes, disfranchised and fined 40 s. for reproacliful and seditious 
words against the Government here established, and for finding fault to divers 
with the Acts of the Court, and for saying "tliis captious goii' will bring all to 
naught, adding that the best of them was but an atturney " (ibid. i. 103). 

Capt. Jolin Stone, in September, 1633, for "confronting aucthority, abuseing 
M' Lvldlowe both in words and behaviur, assalting him & calling him a iust as," 
was fined £100 and prohibited "comeing into this pattent, w"'out leaue of the 
GoQernm*, vnder the penalty of death" (ibid. i. 108). 



1908] WINTHROP OPPOSES CODE OF LAWS 17 

many of their followers ; ^ and who in addition had nearly overthrown 
that popular preacher John Cotton. Once more in power, he and 
the majority of the magistrates were opposed to granting this wish 
of the people. 

He himself writes in 1639: "The people had long desired a body 
of laws, and thought their condition very unsafe, while so much power 
rested in the discretion of the magistrates." He adds: 

Two great reasons there were, which caused most of the magistrates 
and some of the elders not to be very forward in this matter. One was, 
want of sufficient experience of the nature and disposition of the people, 
considered with the condition of the country and other circumstances, 
which made them conceive, that such laws would be fittest for us which 
should arise pro re nata upon occasions, etc., and so the laws of England 
and other states grew, and therefore the fundamental laws of England 
are called customs, consuetudines. 2. For that it would professedly 
transgress the limits of our charter, which provide, we shall make no 
laws repugnant to the laws of England, and that we were assured we 
must do. 

Then, having laid down the proposition that their legislation would 
inevitably be repugnant to the laws of England, he goes on to argue 
the point, saying: 

But to raise up laws by practice and custom had been no transgression ; 
as in our church discipline, and in matters of marriage, to make a law, 
that marriages should not be solemnized by ministers, is repugnant to 
the laws of England; but to bring it to a custom by practice for the 
magistrates to perform it is no law made repugnant to it, etc.^ 

Here, then, is Wintlirop's creed. Let us have no code, so long as 
we can help it, but let us go ahead and establish customs. Let us pass 
only such laws as shall be required by occasions, and he exemplified 
his meaning by attaching to the first ordinance entered in the Boston 
Records words asserting that the ordinance "is but a declaration of 
the Common Law." ^ 

Now, as people looked around they could not only see such cases 

» Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 211, 212. =" Journal, i. 322, 323. 

' Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, ii. (second edition) 1. 

2 



18 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACETUSETTS [J.VS. 

of punishment as the one which I have quoted above, but in addi- 
tion to arbitrary punishments for ordinary crimes, others Uke the 
following. 

Thomas Walford was living at Charlestown in the only house then 
built, when Endicott's party arrived. The next year, after Winthrop's 
arrival, he was fined forty shillings, and he and his wife were enjoined 
to depart out of the limits of this patent before the twentieth of October 
next following under pain of confiscation of his goods, for his contempt 
of authority and confronting officers.^ 

Thomas Morton of Mount Wollaston, another resident of this 
region, who was living in his own house when Winthrop arrived 
here, was ordered by the Court to be put in the bilboes and 
then to be sent to England on the ship Gift. All of his goods 
were ordered to be seized to meet his debts and to pay an Indian 
for a canoe which it was alleged he had appropriated. After 
his goods were removed from his house, it was to be burnt to the 
ground.^ 

Sir Christopher Gardiner, another prior resident of this region, was 
sent to England as a prisoner on the ship Lion. Gardiner was one of 
a number of persons deported on the Lion.^ 

In short, persons obnoxious to the government ; those who preached 
heretical opinions; those who attacked the Church; and those who 
confronted oflScers, were deported or banished. They could not 
even transfer their real estate. Such transfers, unless approved by 
the town authorities, were set aside, and those concerned in them 
fined. 

In addition to the definke offences, enumerated above, there were 
certain that were indefinite, the probable punishment of which was 
only to be measured through such threats as these — if any man 
shall exceed the bounds of moderation we shall punish them severely 
— the final words of a statute regulating trade.* The right of a 
man to carry money or beaver with him to England was made de- 
pendent upon the consent of the Governor for the time being.^ 

This was apparently the sort of Common Law that Winthrop 
wanted to work out, and it is evident that some of it was not altogether 



Massachuset 


ts Colony Records, i. 86. 


* Ibid. i. 111. 


Ibid. i. 75. 




» Ibid. i. 93. 


Ibid. i. 83. 







1908] HARVARD FAVORS CODE OF LAWS 19 

acceptable to the colonists.' The presence of John Harvard on the 
committee appointed to do what they could to secure a code of laws 
would indicate that he sympathized with the movement to procure 
some recognition of the rights of the people and that his name was 
to be registered among those whom Winthrop himself described as 
being of opinion that "their condition was very unsafe while so much 
power rested in the discretion of the Magistrates." 

Harvard had arrived too late to take part in the conflict between 
Vane and Winthrop, although he must constantly have heard their 
names and those of Mrs. Hutchinson and Cotton and Wheelwright 
in the daily interchange of news with his neighbors which then took 
the place of the morning newspaper. The trials before the General 
Court in November of that year must have been followed with eager- 
ness by all the colonists, and even after the excommunication of IVIrs. 
Hutcliinson, in the final trial before the Church in the spring of 1638, 
the whole subject must have continued to be of public interest. Espe- 
cially was this the case in Boston, where Winthrop was in disfavor, 
his following being recorded to be of the country, and the open evi- 
dence of dislike with which he met having taken place in that town. 
That a resident of Charlestown must have realized that the sympathies 
of the people across the river were with those who had been defeated 
at the polls is a certainty. When the election was held, Winthrop 
forced the holding of it at Cambridge, against the opposition of Vane. 
Charlestown was probably too near Boston to suit his purposes, and 
perhaps the people there sympathized with their neighbors. 

Out of all this has come a general impression that Winthrop was 
the representative of intolerance and even of persecution. Naturally 
those who were .opposed to him pose in public estimation as the advo- 
cates of toleration and freedom.^ Plymouth Colony gave refuge to 

* The situation was sized up by Chalmers in the following 'words : 

The colonists became at length dissatisfied with adjudications various and contrary, 
since every magistrate decided according to the equity of his own mind, without estab- 
lished laws to inform his judgment, or former precedents to direct his practice. Dis- 
satisfaction soon swelled into clamor, and continued complaint produced ultimate 
reformation (Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the American Colonies, Boston, 
1845, i. 50). 

' Winthrop himself contended that he was not in favor of a rigorous execution 
of the orders against those who were merely residents. He stated "that it was 
his judgment, that, in the infancy of the plantations, justice should be admin- 



20 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

some of the exiles from this Colony, and later the settlement at Rhode 
Island, under the direction of Roger Williams, became a sort of Cave 
of AduUam for the discontents banished from ]\Iassachusetts Bay. 
Both of these settlements were far more liberal than Massachusetts 
Bay. This adds to the disposition to regard all opponents of the 
Winthrop regime as Uberals. When therefore we find Harvard ap- 
pointed on a committee to forward the preparation of a code of laws, 
in known opposition to the wishes of the great leader of the Colony, 
then at the height of liis power, we are prone to tliink of him as sympa- 
thizing with Cotton and WheelwTight and IVIrs. Hutchinson, an atti- 
tude liighly improbable for the colleague of Zachariah Symmes, or 
for one whom John Wilson could eulogize. We involuntarily give to 
this opposition a character to which it is probably not entitled, and 
credit the opponents of Wintlu-op with being apostles of freedom. 
Success on Vane's part at the polls in Cambridge in the fall of 1G37 
might have reversed these reputations, but we must accept things as 
we find them, with the result that in this appointment on the Charles- 
town committee we find Harvard identified with a movement of prog- 
ress wliich brought him in opposition, on this point at least, with 
the leader ffHk»mpp99t&m^ of those who represent to us the spirit of 
intolerance. 

I have dwelt at some length upon the Charlestown committee for 
the reason that it is the only recorded event which brings us in touch 
with Harvard's relations to his fellow-townsmen. INIoreover, it is 
important in showing his estimate of the rights of his fellow-citizens. 
They were entitled to have a settled government. They were entitled 
to have a fixed set of laws. They were entitled to be protected from 
the caprice of the magistrates. 

Me commune honum., prccsertim gloria Christi, 
Impulit et chares posteritatis amor. 

These words from John Wilson's elegy, words written by a contem- 
porary who certainly knew all about him, with the purpose of charac- 
terizing the man, are singularly appropriate and are fully justified 

istered with more lenity than in a settled state; " and after some discussion he 
acknowledged "that he was convinced, that he had failed in over much lenity and 
remissness and would endeavor (by God's assistance), to take a more strict course 
hereafter" (Journal, i. 178). 



1908] JOHN HARVARD S PERSONALITY 21 

by what has just been said. The editor of the 1853 edition of the 
Magnalia translates the Unes as follows: 

The common weal, the glory of my God, 

The love of man — these lured me where I trod.* 

The emphasis placed by Wilson upon Harvard's piety is lost in this 
translation, and it is noticeable also that it was the love of posterity, 
not merely the love of his contemporaries which impelled — not lured 
— him to take the steps that he did. 

One other contemporary, Thomas Shepard, who also must have 
known him well, characterized him in an epigrammatic sentence of 
almost identical import : 

This man was a scholar, and pious in his life, and enlarged toward the 
country, and the good of it, in life and death.^ 

We have here testimony as to his scholarship, liis piety, his public 
spirit, and his benevolence. From another contemporaneous source 
we gain an idea as to the character and quality of his preaching. A 
single line from some verses in Johnson's Wonder-working Providence 
gives us an estimate of his powers in this line, furnished by one who 
must have heard him when in his own pulpit at Charlestown. The 
poet addresses Harvard and exhorts him to tell how sweet among the 
saints, Christ has ravished his heart with heavenly joys, — 

To preach and pray, with tears affection strong. 

He was not, then, to adopt a contemporaneous epithet, a "painful" 
preacher but was of the emotional type. Elswehere, Johnson uses 
somewhat similar language when speaking of Shepard's preaching. 
One of Shepard's hearers, the author says, "was faine to hang down 
the head often, least liis watry eyes should blab abroad the secret con- 
junction of his affections." ^ Many of Shepard's sermons have been 
preserved. Their perusal to-day does not promote "watry eyes" in 
the sense in which the author of Wonder-working Providence meant 
to imply that actual hearers were affected. We cannot, however, 



' Magnalia, ii. 33. 

' Autobiography, p. 64. 

* Wonder-working Providence, p. 103. 



22 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

overlook the fact that Shepard had a wonderful hold upon his 
people, and if we do not find in his printed sermons adequate cause 
for his great force in the community, we must seek for the explanation 
in his winning personaUty, in his manners, in the mutual sympathy 
between himself and liis congregation, and in the identity of their 
religious beliefs. Nor does the similarity of Johnson's language in 
epitomizing the style of two different men greatly minimize the 
descriptive value of his account. He must have been familiar with 
the methods of both Harvard and Shepard. We have no published 
works of the former to which we can turn, but a single phrase in one 
of Shepard's sermons gives a hint as to what he evidently did not 
like. "People are naturally moved sometimes," he says, "by a 
thundering minister." ^ 

These contemporary descriptions of Harvard and of his preaching, 
when collated, tend greatly to reduce the evasive character of his per- 
sonality. They bring before us a scholarly and pious man ; an emo- 
tional preacher ; a public spirited citizen, and a generous benefactor ; 
one who was selected by his fellow-citizens for service on an important 
committee, where both steadfastness and moral courage were required 
if aught was to be accomplished, and this at a time when his health 
must have been precarious. An open-minded man withal, as we may 
infer, from his willingness to study the opinions of his opponents, 
which is disclosed in the number of books by Jesuit authors, placed 
by himself upon the shelves of his library. 

It would obviously be an unauthorized flight of imagination to go 
farther and intimate that this foreshadows sympathy with the spirit 
which led Dunster to insert as a motto for the College the word Veritas 
in the rude sketch of a proposed seal drawn a few years thereafter in 
the College Hall on a page of a College Record Book. Nevertheless, 
the deference to the opinions of those who differed from him shown 
in the purchase of books for his library, may, perhaps, justify the 
opinion that he would have endorsed the action of Dunster in thus 
pledging the College to the inflexible propagation of the truth — 
whatever the consequences — whatever the prejudices that must be 
trampled down ! 

I have now exhausted the record of the traces which Harvard left 

» Certain Select Cases Resolved, p. 49. 



1908] harvard's bequest to the college 23 

behind liim in life. His death revealed the direction in which his 
thoughts were turned. One half of his estate was left to the inchoate 
College to be established at Newtown. It matters not whether the 
exact amount of the bequest as stated by Mather, £779 17s 2d, was 
correct or not.* It matters not that the receipt in full of the amount 
by the College cannot be discovered. The fact that he bequeathed a 
sum estimated at the time at about £800 is testified to by nearly all 
the contemporaneous writers on New England affairs. The records 
show that some of it at least was received, and there is no good ground 
for the quibble upon which the doubt as to the value of the estate was 
founded. The financial records of the College at that day have not 
been preserved in such shape that any inferences can be drawn from 
the fact that no acknowledgment of the receipt of an amount equal to 
the alleged bequest can be found. Whatever the value of the estate, 
it was enough to secure the organization of the College at once, and its 
instrumentality in that direction was recognized in the following spring 
by the passage of an Act assigning the name " Harvard College" to the 
little institution at Cambridge, whose inception had been hastened 
through the bequest. Had there been issued in the summer of 1638 
an edition of "Who's Who in America," Harvard's name would 
not have appeared in it. He had published nothing. He had done 
nothing to make himself conspicuous. But the philanthropic motive 
which inspired the bequest, secured for him posthumous fame. It 
would seem as if, in taking this step, he might with prophetic insight, 
have had in mind the lines — 

What shall I do to be forever known. 
And make the age to come, my own? 

Let us now ask ourselves what manner of place was this to which 
Harvard had come ? How many people were there in the Colony and 
what were the conditions of life ? 

* The memorandum made by Winthrop and published by Savage in the Ad- 
denda reads : "Mr. Harvard gave to the College about £800 " (Winthrop's Journal, 
ii. 342). The author of New England's First Fruits, p. 12, says "one halfe of his 
estate, (being in all £1700) towards the erecting of a college,, and all his Library." 
Thomas Shepard says, "The Lord put it into the heart of one Mr. Harvard, who 
dyed worth £1600 to give halfe his estate to the erecting of the Schoole" (Auto- 
biography, p. 64). Johnson in his Wonder-working Providence fixes the amount 
of the bequest at "near a thousand pounds" (p. 133). 



24 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

Seven years before this time ^Yinth^op arrived in New England. 
He then found about two hundred people in and about Salem and an- 
other hundred at Charlestown. One Thomas Walford was already in 
possession, living in what was termed a palisaded house, when the 
first band of these settlers arrived at Charlestown.' 

The arrival in this country of ^Yinth^op was followed by that re- 
markable immigration which in a few years converted the wilderness 
along the Massachusetts shore into a cluster of populous villages. It 
has been stated that between 1630 and 1643, two hundred and ninety- 
eight vessels had arrived, bringing 21,200 persons.^ In order that we 
might not feel too confident upon this point, other writers have set the 
number of arrivals up to 1640 at 4000 only.^ That the former estimate 
is approximately correct is evident from the figures from time to time 
given of the number of passengers on the different vessels by Win- 
throp in his Journal. He does not undertake to record the arrival of 
every vessel, nor does he give the number of passengers on every one 
of those that he mentions, but he does give the names of some of 
the vessels which arrived during this period and in some instances 
the number of passengers brought by them. The highest number 
conveyed on any one ship was 220, the lowest 10. He says that 
in 1638 alone there arrived twenty ships bearing 3000 passengers * 
and the average number on thirty-three ships that I have culled 
from his narrative, which arrived down to and including the 3000 
in 1638, was 140 passengers for each ship. Now, if the two hundred 
and ninety-eight ships which are reported to have arrived by 1643 
each bore 70 passengers it would justify the higher estimate of 
arrivals. Hence one cannot be far wrong if . he should say that 
there must have arrived 10,000 or 11,000 immigrants in INIassa- 
chusetts when Harvard set foot there. Those settlers were scattered 
along the coast in villages within easy distance of each other, none 
of them being far from the seashore. We have two means of testing 
the relative importance of these settlements in 1637. One, the draft 
ordered for soldiers for the Pequot War, the other the distribution 

* Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 374. 

' Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, i. 91 ; Johnson's Wonder-working 
Providence, p. 31. 
' Magnaha, i. 80. 

* Winthrop's Journal, i. 268. 



1908] POPULATION OF MASSACHUSETTS IN 1637 25 

of the country rate. It would not be unreasonable to infer that 
the former was based on population, the latter on property. The 
towns stand in the following order of importance in the draft order : * 
Boston, Salem, Ipswich, Saugus, Watertown, Dorchester, Charles- 
town, Roxbury, Newtown, Newbury, Hingham, Weymouth, Medford, 
Marblehead, the last two being each called upon to furnish four men. 
In the distribution of the rates,^ Boston leads, then comes Salem, 
then Dorchester and Charlestown, then Ipswich, followed by Rox- 
bury and Watertown on even terms ; then Newtown, Saugus, Medford, 
Newbury, Hingham, Weymouth. Marblehead does not appear as a 
separate settlement in this list. A second rate was levied this year, 
in which the order was slightly varied and Saugus appeared as Lynn. 
It will be seen that Boston had already attained its supremacy, while 
Charlestown ranked higher on the property list than on the one based 
on population. 

It would not be an easy matter to estimate the population of the 
towns at this time. The number of immigrants by no means indicates 
the number of permanent settlers. The mortality had at times been 
great. Many settlers had returned to England, and it is not reason- 
able to suppose that the birth rate during this period had offset this 
depletion, but a rough estimate would indicate that there might have 
been in Boston at that time a permanent population of 1500 or 1600 
which was likely at any time to be swelled temporarily as high as 2000 
by the arrival of transients. Charlestown had perhaps a population 
of 600 and that, of course, was subject to temporary increase from 
time to time by the overflow from Boston. Both places were rapidly 
growing. 

Those who first arrived, if not provided with tents, constructed 
temporary shelters, which were termed booths, or huts, or wigwams.^ 
The last of these, made with boughs of trees, soon became mere 
tinder boxes, and were necessarily much subject to conflagration. 
The household fires were presumably outside and as they could not 

' Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 192. 

2 Ibid. i. 201. 

* Winthrop calls them wigwams (Journal, i. 30, 38) ; Prince, booths and 
tents (Annals, p. 309); Scottow, huts and smoky cottages (Narrative of the 
Planting of Massachusetts Colony, 1694, p. 16) ; Hubbard, small cottages (His- 
tory of New England, p. 134) ; Winslow, booths and huts (Good News from 
New England, 1648, 4 Massachusetts Historical Collections, i. 201). 



26 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OP MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

be dispensed with during high winds, the flying sparks not infre- 
quently caused the destruction of the wigwams and often also of the 
belongings of the occupants. 

Such lodgings were followed by others of a more permanent char- 
acter, but still primitive. It is natural to suspect that the settlers pro- 
ceeded to construct log-cabins, and we should conceive of buildings 
of this sort being made as they are to-day in the South and West, an 
outline of logs being laid on the ground and others superimposed 
upon them. By hewing the upper and lower surface of each log so 
that it can rest upon its neighbors below ; by mortising their ends at 
the corners of the building; and by preserving the several tiers of 
logs on a level, a solid wall can easily be reared to the required height 
for a roof. By caulking the cracks between the logs and daubing 
them with clay, such a structure may be made fairly impervious to 
the wind. Whether buildings of this kind were erected by the colo- 
nists does not, so far as I know, appear. Their permanent homes 
are merely spoken of as cottages or houses, with the exception that in 
one or two instances — for example, in describing the house of Thomas 
Walford which was found by the settlers at Charlestown — palisaded 
houses are referred to.* The meaning of this term becomes clear 
when we turn to the Plymouth Records and find men charged with 
effecting an entrance to a house by moving the loose palisadoes.' 
Houses of this sort were evidently constructed with vertical logs, 
the lower ends being sharpened and driven into the ground, or set 
in a trench, as is the custom in the West to-day, the upper ends 
being fastened together and roofed over. The use of this form of 
log-house, at least, we can identify with reasonable certainty. 

Bearing in mind that there is no limestone to be found along our 
coast, it will be realized that a formidable difficulty was to be encoun- 
tered in the construction of chimneys and in the interior finish of 
wooden houses until by some means the lack of this material was 
overcome. Bricks could easily be manufactured, and Higginson says 
they were made in Salem as early as 1629.^ Until limestone was dis- 

* Early Records of Charlestown, in Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 374. 

* March 2, 1646-47, John Crocker rs. Thomas Shawe, "for coming into his 
house by pulling aside some loose pallisadocs, on ye Lords day, about ye middle 
of ye day" (Plymouth Colony Records, i. 111). 

* New Englands Plantation, in Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 244. 



1908] CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES IN 1637-1638 27 

covered within accessible distances, lime for mortar could only have 
been procured by calcining oyster and clam shells. The cost of this 
process precluded for a while the extensive use of mortar and pre- 
vented the inside plastering of the houses. Chimneys were constructed 
of small strips of wood laid at right angles to each other, one on top 
of another and locked together at the corners by gravity, the craclcs 
between the strips being filled with mud and the inside surface of the 
chimney covered with a coating of clay. Winthrop records a fire 
occasioned by the ignition of such a chimney. "About noon," he 
says, "the chimney of Mr. Sharp's house in Boston took fire (the 
splinters being not clayed at the top), and taking the thatch burnt it 
down." ^ This quotation, in addition to the description of the chim- 
ney which it furnishes, reveals to us one of the causes of the frequent 
fires recorded in the early days of the Colony — namely, the thatched 
roof.^ The immigrant had been accustomed to roofs of this descrip- 
tion in England, where the frequent showers kept them sufiiciently 
moist to prevent special danger from fire in houses having such well 
constructed chimneys as the English cottages were provided with. 
Here the occasional drouths, and the protracted spells of infrequent 
rain, entirely altered the conditions of exposure to conflagration from the 
use of such a roof, and added to this increased hazard was the danger, 
as we have seen, that some of the splinters of the wooden chimneys 
might not be clayed at the top. Doubtless, the same neglect sometimes 
occurred at the bottom as well. As late as 1642 the town of Boston 
erected a building the roof of which was ordered to be thatched.^ 

Winthrop gives us a clue to still another cause of conflagration, 
which would not have suggested itself to us at once. He says, "The 
house of John Page of Watertown was burnt by carrying a few coals 
from one house to another; a coal fell by the way and kindled the 
leaves." * Of course, a moment's reflection would recall to any of 
us that the friction match was a comparatively recent invention. The 
convenience of this method of ignition is so interwrought with our 

* Winthrop's Journal, i. 48. 

* For references to wooden chimneys and thatched roofs, see Dudley's letter 
to the Countess of Lincoln, March, 1631 (Collections New Hampshire Historical 
Society, iv. 248). ' 

' Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, ii. 70. 

* Winthrop's Journal, i. 54. 



28 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

daily lives, that the thought of going over to a neighbor's for a shovel- 
ful of coals to start up a fire would not naturally suggest itself as an 
every day possibility, but it is apparent that under the then existing 
circumstances every household would endeavor to maintain a bed of 
coals in the fireplace, in order to avoid the delay incident to the use 
of flint and tinder in kindling a fire. The colonists were so accus- 
tomed to the loss of property by fire that Cotton Mather records 
without comment the fact that the houses of the Rev. John Wilson 
had been destroyed "divers times by fires." * These losses were, 
according to Mather, borne by Wilson cheerfully. Indeed, on one 
occasion, when the destruction of his house by fire was announced 
to him, he said, "Blessed be God! he has burnt this house, 
because he intends to give me a better" — which, adds Mather, 
accordingly came to pass. 

The disadvantage of not having lime at ready command is illus- 
trated by an experience in house-building recorded by Winthrop. 
He says, "The governor having erected a building of stone at Mis- 
tick, there came so violent a storm of rain for twenty four h6urs 
from N. E. and S. E. as (it not being finished, and laid with clay for 
want of lime) two sides were washed down." ^ Elsewhere people suf- 
fered in a similar way, though not so disastrously. Their complaint 
was merely that the daubing was washed out by storms.^ Scottow 
describes the first meeting-house in Boston as a "Mud Wall meeting 
house," * and in the Boston Records we find a house described as a 
"Mud Wall house." ^ As late as 1653 the town of Dorchester paid a 
charge for daubing the walls of the second meeting-house built in that 
place.® The protracted use of this style of finish merely indicates the 
difficulty experienced by the colonists in procuring lime. They made 
use of such means as were at hand to make their houses windproof. 

There was one other method of protection from the penetrating 

' Magnalia, i. 311. 

^ Winthrop's Journal, i. 63. 

3 Mourt's Relation (1865), p. 9. 

* Scottow's Narrative of the planting of the Colony, p. 40. 

* Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, ii. 40. 

' Ibid. iv. 63. See also two charges in 1637 for daubing the meeting-house 
(Essex Institute Historical Collections, iv; Second series, i). Roger Clap describea 
the Castle as built with "Mud walls which stood for divers years" (Memoirs, 
Boston, 1731, p. 15). 



1908] THE INTERIOR FINISH OF HOUSES 29 

winds beside daubing with clay, perhaps not so effectual but at any 
rate likely to prove more cleanly. Clapboards were from the very 
outset an article of export both here and in Plymouth, and they could 
be used in houses both externally and internally. In the case of 
framed houses, the construction of which began with the arrival of 
artisans, at a very early date, the exterior covering of shingles or 
clapboards was practically a necessity. We have the record of the 
use of clapboards for interior finish as early as 1632 under circum- 
stances which also enlighten us as to what was considered ostenta- 
tion in house building at that time. It had been agreed to move 
the government to Cambridge, and in order to make the plan effec- 
tive the several members of the government mutually consented to 
transfer their homes there. Dudley actually set up his establishment 
in Cambridge. Winthrop built a house, put his servants in it for a 
few days, and then ha\dng concluded that the attempt to transfer the 
government there was a failure, he took down the frame of the house 
and moved it to Boston.^ Dudley charged him with going back on 
his word. Winthrop retaliated with a counter-charge that "he 
[Dudley] did not well to bestow such cost about wainscoting and 
adorning his house, in the beginning of a plantation, both in regard 
of the necessity of publick charges, and for example." ^ To this 
charge of ostentation and extravagance in the interior finish of his 
house, by the substitution of wainscoting for clay-daubing, Dudley 
replied, "that it was for the warmth of his house, and the charge was 
but little, being but clapboards nailed to the wall in the form of a 
wainscot." This was in 1632. The frame house had already asserted 
itself, but so simple an interior finish as wainscoting with clapboards 
was subject to criticism. In the five years that followed before Harvard 
arrived, there was doubtless some improvement in the character of 
the houses as they were from time to time erected, and it is probable 
that wainscoting became permissible. At any rate, we find evidence 
that this was so in 1639 when the first College building was erected, 
and a contemporary writer describes the buildings in Boston as 
"Houses of the first edition, without large chambers or windows, 
ceiled with cedar or painted with vermilion." ' 

' Winthrop's Journal, i. 82. 

» Ibid. i. 73. 

* Scottow's Narrative of the Planting of Massachusetts Colony, p. 41. 



30 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

Besides houses of the character of those already referred to,^Yinth^op 
speaks of one wliich was burned down in 1G32, constructed exclusively 
of clapboards.' It is not probable that when Harvard landed in 
Charlestown in 1637 he found many log-cabins or clapboard houses. 
The place had already assumed the shape of a settlement, and boards 
and squared timber were procurable. It must be added, however, that 
seasoned lumber must have been out of the reach of the builder. The 
difficulty about obtaining lime, although partially overcome, still ex- 
isted in a great measure, and the houses then constructed, although 
adequate shelters for a young and hardy population, must have been 
totally inadequate to protect invalids or aged people, if there were 
any in the Colony, from the severe and violent changes of our winter 
weather. 

If we wish to ascertain just what the possibilities of Harvard's 
house were, let us look for a moment at the methods of construction 
and finish made use of in the College building at Cambridge, the 
erection of which was made possible by Harvard's bequest. Here 
was a building which was intended to be permanent. Yet, so utterly 
inadequate for its preservation were the methods of construction then 
in vogue, that in 1677 a portion of the building fell down, thus limiting 
its life to less than forty years. The cause of this fall is not stated, but 
unseasoned lumber and bad mortar would sufficiently explain it. 
While the building was still very young there were complaints of 
rotting ground-sills, and heavy demands were made on the College 
purse for repairs. 

Under one roof in this building were all the rooms deemed requisite 
for the College and the students. There was the public hall where 
religious and literary exercises were held and where also the students 
had their commons. Over this was a room in which was the library 
that Harvard brought with him to Charlestown. The kitchen and 
buttery were on the ground floor, and there were dormitories in both ' 
stories as well as in the attic. The chambers were provided with 
studies, mere closets in size, but rendering it possible for the occu- 
pants of the rooms to obtain some sort of seclusion during study hours.^ 
When this building was erected the College was very short of money 

• Winthrop's Journal, i. 87. 

' The Early College Buildings at Cambridge, Proceedings of the American 
Antiquarian Society for April, 1890. 



1908] CONSTRUCTION OF THE FIRST HARVARD COLLEGE 31 

and the several studies and chambers were finished according to the 
desires of those who intended to occupy them, the cost of the finish 
being charged to the proposed occupant. Tliis enables us to see what 
was possible at that time in the way of interior finish. Certain of the 
rooms were lathed and daubed, and as there are charges for clay, it 
would follow with reasonable certainty that the clay was purchased 
for this purpose.^ Other rooms were plastered and wliitened. Still 
others were sealed with cedais, thus being finished in that reprehen- 
sible form, wainscoting. There were charges for glass used in the 
building, but they would seem to be inadequate for all the windows. 
There are references in existence which indicate that oiled paper 
was also in use at that time.^ 

Hints at the life in the building help us to understand the conditions 
under which Harvard was placed in his new house at Charlestown a 
few years before these entries were made. There were, for instance, 
only one or two studies which were capable of being warmed. Hence, 
in the winter months, nearly all the students were compelled to assem- 
ble in the public hall, where, before the open fireplace, they could at 
any rate keep from freezing. Wood was abundant, but a roaring fire 
in an open fireplace required constant replenishing. It was easy to 
produce heat enough to warm such a room, but the trouble was that 
nearly all of it went up the chimney and in a drafty room, even the 
interposition of a settle as a screen did not mean comfort with a hot 
fire on one side and the cliill of the room the other. The question of 
lighting the hall in the evenings sufficiently for study must have been 
a troublesome one. The steward charged the students for candles 
and if they made use of the public fire a charge was made for this. 
The drafty room, the open fire and the tallow candle — these were the 
conditions to which all were subject, and if they do not in themselves 
indicate suffering, they at least do not convey an idea of comfort. 
Higginson, writing at an earlier date, says that there were no tallow 

* It may seem unnecessary to devote so much time to the discussion of daubed 
walls in connection with tlie career of one wliose mother was from Stratford and 
a contemporary of the poet who wrote the familiar lines — 

Imperious Caesar dead and turned to clay 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. 

' "Bring paper and linseed oil for your windows" (Winslow in Mourt's Rela- 
tion, p. 142). 



32 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACITDSETTS [J.AJI. 

candles to be had in the Colony but that they had fish oil in abundance 
for lighting, and that pine splinters served their purpose very well.' 
These references to candles in the College books would indicate that 
candles had soon become plenty in the Colony, but the inventories of 
the day are of no use in settling this question. 

The College books assist in interpreting the conditions of life on one 
other point — namely, how the colonists managed to carry on their 
daily transactions without a circulating medium. Coming as they did 
to what they were accustomed to term a wilderness, they did not fortify 
themselves with coin. The result was that they were soon obliged to 
provide substitutes. A price was fixed, at which the Indian wampum 
should circulate. Bullets were made current for a time in place of 
brass farthings. Prices were fixed for beaver skins. Corn was declared 
to be a legal tender, and so on.^ The result of all this was that the 
Treasurer of the College received very little silver. He was paid al- 
most exclusively in commodities, oftentimes in live stock. Take a single 
account for a year. It was settled in rye, Indian, wheat, malt, butter, 
apples, and a final payment designated as commodities. The same diffi- 
culty must have been experienced in Charlestown by John Harvard, 
and it would be interesting to find out how he managed to pay his bills, 
or if he did not run any bills, fancy him going to market equipped with 
a few bushels of corn, a bundle of beaver skins, a string of wampum and 
a handful of bullets, thus prepared to settle for what he should buy. 

I think we can safely draw the conclusion from what has been 
learned from the College building that the house that Harvard built 
for himself must have been but a very simple and rude cottage, espe- 
cially must it have been small, if he was to occupy it during the winter' 
of 1637-1638, for the reason that the smaller and simpler the house the 
quicker could it be finished. If it survived until Sewall's time, it had a 
long life for those days, but of course, this was possible, since with 
constant occupation and continuous repairs, there would be a gradual 
substitution of new material, which might not only prolong the life of 
the building, but actually improve it and place it in better condition 

• Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 254. Capt. Smith says, "traine oyle 
with the splinters of the roots of pine trees for candles" (3 Massachusetts His- 
torical Collections, iii. 38); Wood, New England's Prospect (1898), p. 18. 

* Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 92 (corn), 97 (bullets), 140 (beaver), 208 
(wampum). 



1908] harvard's winter LIFE IN CHARLESTOWN 33 

for continued life. Harvard was a comparatively wealthy man. Few 
of the colonists could show such a balance sheet. The days of framed 
houses had by that time become fairly well established in the older 
towns. He could, therefore, afford to indulge in a brick chimney, a 
shingled roof, in walls plastered and whitened or in a wainscot, and he 
certainly would have clapboarded the outside of his house. Probably 
also he had glass and not paper in his windows. 

Here, surrounded by the three hundred and seventy-three or per- 
haps more volumes which he brought over with him,' he must have 
made the best of the situation, and although it would be difficult for us 
to obtain much pleasure from the perusal of most of the volumes in his 
library, still inasmuch as they were deliberately selected by him, we 
must conclude that he expected to derive comfort from them. If his 
house was constructed in the fall, the time had come when he moved in, 
for him to enjoy his books. Winter was at hand with its cold winds, its 
ice and snow and slush. Inside the house, in the room where the books 
were shelved, near the fire, sheltered by the settle, was the place for the 
delicate young clergyman whose predisposition to pulmonary com- 
plaint forbade the idea of much exposure in ordinary New England 
winter weather. Reading these ponderous volumes,^ whose contents 
seem to us to-day as heavy as the books themselves, by the light of a 
candle in the winter evenings, afforded opportunity for cultivation and 
study if not for recreation. It is not right, however, to assume that 
what seems dull to us to-day was without interest to the theological 
student of the seventeenth century. 

Audiences then listened patiently to long sermons which in their 
published form require careful study for us, to-day, to make out their 
meaning. Winthrop says : ^ 



* Dunster's list of these books comprehends 260 titles. Several' of these titles 
indicated works published in several volumes. See A few Notes concerning the 
Records of Harvard College, Bibliograpliical Contributions, Library of Harvard 
University, No. 27. Quite recently a praiseworthy effort has been put forth to 
place upon the shelves of the Harvard Library a copy of each work named in the 
catalogue — a contemporaneous pubUcation by preference. The study of the 
subject has revealed the fact that the library bequeathed by Harvard must have 
contained 373 volumes. 

2 The effort to duplicate these volumes has disclosed the fact that many 
of them were octavos and some even smaller. 

^ Wintlirop's Journal, i. 304. 

3 



34 TnE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

Mr. Hooker began to preach at Cambridge, the governor and many 
others went to hear him, (though the governor did very seldom go 
from his own congregation on the Lord's day). He preached in the 
afternoon, and having gone on with much strength of voice and 
intention of spirit, about a quarter of an hour, he was at a stand, and told 
the people, that God had deprived him both of his strength and matter, 
&c. and so went forth, and about half an hour after returned again, and 
went on to very good purpose about two hours. 

And yet, so complete was the domination of Hooker over his parish 
that when he went to Hartford, one hundred of his parishioners ac- 
companied him, making the journey on foot, in about fourteen days. 
We can think of them trudging along through the forest, treading the 
old Indian trail, which skirted the swamps and led from ford to ford of 
brook or river, over the saddles in the intervening ranges of hills, and 
following their favorite preacher who could hold forth for over two 
hours, even when physically so prostrate that he was obliged to stop 
for a rally. We cannot judge of the enjoyment or the satisfaction to 
be derived by one situated as Harvard was, in the perusal of books 
which do not interest us to-day. It may be, probably was, that he 
found comfort in his Bellarminus and his Zanchius and recreation in 
Quarles's Poems and the Mirror for Magistrates. 

It would be pleasant for those who are smokers to think of Harvard 
toasting his feet before the fire and enjoying a pipe. This process 
was in those days termed "taking" or "drinking" tobacco and was 
frowned upon by the authorities. The public use of tobacco was for- 
bidden in 1632 and its sale was prohibited in 1635. Thus the law 
stood until the spring of 1638. It was possible therefore for Harvard 
at this time if he could procure smuggled tobacco to smoke it in soli- 
tude, but the presence of his wife during the act would have made this 
proceeding illegal. In March, 1638, the restraints were temporarily 
withdrawn, but early in September they were again interposed and 
tobacco was not allowed to be taken in the fields, except on a journey, 
nor at meal-times, nor in or near any house, barn or hay-rack, where 
there was danger of fire; nor at any inn, or common victualing-house, 
except in a private room with no other person present.' 

' Winthrop was not, apparently, opposed to its use. March 18, 1627, he 
wrote "We want a little tobacco. I had very good, for seven shillings a pound 



1908] WHAT JOHN HARVARD HAD TO EAT 35 

We are prone to think of the food which was served in those days 
as something for which the settlers were entitled to sympathy, I should 
be inclined to say that if Ann Sadler was a good plain cook, Harvard's 
table would have been quite as attractive as the ordinary table of 
to-day. We all know how good the simple things taste which are 
served to us in camp. To Winthrop the rough fare seemed good, 
and he wrote in 1630, "I never fared better in my life, never slept 
better, never had more content of mind," * and again, "Though we 
have not beef and mutton yet (God be praised) we want them not. Our 
Indian corn answers for all. Yet here is fowl and fish in great plenty." ^ 
Johnson, describing things a few years later, spoke of the gardens and 
orchards. The author of New England's First Fruits, writing only 
two or three years later, spoke of the gardens — orchards, grounds 
fenced, corn fields, etc. — and enumerated the resources of the table as 
fish — sea and fresh — fowl of all kinds, wild and tame, and spoke of 
white meal and of English grain as well as Indian. Goats, sheep and 
cattle had multiplied, and although in 1637 and 1638 they could not 
have been sufficiently numerous to be relied upon for furnishing meat 
for the table, still there is evidence that the colonists occasionally in- 
dulged in this diet. ' The forest, in season, provided occasional veni- 
son. Fowls were abundant, and, after they had become acclimated, 
bred freely. Partridges, pigeons and ducks, wild turkeys and geese 
were to be had in plenty in the fall of the year. The brooks were full 
of trout and the ocean teemed with life. Mackerel, cod, haddock, 
pollock, hake, and bass were to be had all along the coast, some of 
them at any time and in any quantity; and there were sturgeon in 
some of the rivers, and smelts and alewives were at times abundant. 
Clams and oysters were to be procured with ease, there were many 
beds of mussels, and lobsters abounded in the waters of the bay, not 
short lobsters, but big fellows, one of which would serve for a family. 
The period at which Harvard arrived was the transition from the suf- 
ferings of the early immigrants to the plenty which followed their suc- 

at a grocer's by Holborn Bridge" (Journal, i. 350). The statutes referred to will 
be found in the Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 101 (use prohibited), 109 (con- 
stables to take note of persons), 136 (sale prohibited), 204, 206 (former laws 
repealed), 241-242 (new law against use). 

' -Winthrop's Journal, i. 377. 

== Ibid. i. 379. 



36 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS" [Jan. 

cessful efForts at introducing stock and cultivating gardens.' The 
first difficulties attending the cultivation of English grain had at that 
time probably been overcome, and people were no longer absolutely 
dependent upon Indian corn, or imported wheat and oatmeal.- 

Coolving was then accomplished before an open fire. The fowl or 
the cut of meat placed in the spit could be properly browned and 
basted under the constant supervision of the cook. The smaller 
birds could be broiled on the live coals. There were no stoves, and 
no ovens to mingle the flavor of roasted meats, no cold storage to 
destroy their taste. The Charlestown man who in 1638 had eggs 
for breakfast, felt reasonably sure that they were freshly laid and had 
no occasion to speculate as to whether they had been in cold storage 
for the preceding twelve months. There was no occasion for a chef 
de cuisine to disguise the decadent flavor of meats, nominally fresh 
but preserved artificially long after the time when they should have 
been eaten. A plain cook was all that was needed to secure pala- 
table food. I am disposed, therefore, to say that there is no occasion 
for us to waste sympathy on John Harvard on that ground, certainly 
not if I am right in thinking that the era of plenty, which we know 
obtained four or five years later, had already dawned. 

The lack of tea and coffee greatly changed the character of the 
meals of that day from those which are served us to-day. There were 
no five o'clock teas, no after-dinner coffee; but morning, noon, and 
night, beer, beer, beer. This does not sound attractive, but it must 
be remembered that one of the complaints made by the students 
against Eaton was that he did not furnish them with bread and beer 
between meals.^ One important article of diet is said to have been 
abundant, and that is milk. Our authorities do not fix the date when 
it became so, but presumably this was the case in 1638. 

' Wood writes in 1634: "Four eggs may be had for a penny and a quart of 
milk at the same rate and when butter is six pence a pound and Cheshire cheese at 
five pence" (Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 414). 

* Wlien the Governor's wife arrived in 1G31 people sent him "fat hogs, kids, 
venison, poultry, geese, partridges, &c. " (Journal, i. 57). By 1033, the ganlens 
had become productive, so tliat notwithstanding a scarcity of com people lived 
well with fish and the fruit of their gardens (ibid. i. 108). 

' "For bread and beer, that it was denied to them betwixt meals, truly, I do 
not remember, that ever I did deny it unto them ; and John Wilson will affirme, 
that, generally, bread and beer was free for the boarders to go unto " ( Winthrop's 
Journal, i. 310 note). 



190S] FURNITURE AND TABLE MANNERS IN 1637 37 

It is not probable that the earher immigi-ants brought with them 
much of any furniture. The vessels were filled with passengers and 
stock. Sheep, cattle, goats, horses were crowded in, and as the 
voyage might be even longer than twelve weeks, they were obliged 
to carry provisions for passengers and for stock which should serve 
under any probable circumstances, and practically they had also to 
provide in advance for the return voyage. Besides this the colonists 
were dependent upon the Mother Country for clothes, for shoes, and 
for some years for medicines, condiments, spices, and some articles 
of food. All these things were of more importance than furniture, 
and it is not conceivable that much storage room could have been 
found for chairs, tables, bedsteads, and bureaus in the crowded ships 
down to 1640.^ If we should seek to reconstruct the furnishing of 
Harvard's house we ought therefore to confine ourselves to simple 
and rude articles, just as well adapted, however, for their purpose 
as if more skilfully constructed.^ 

Table habits and table manners must have been very different at 
that time from those which prevail to-day. We should be shocked if 
when we sat down to dinner a guest should pull out a clasp knife, cut 
up his meat into small pieces, and then feed himself by conveying 
them to his mouth with his fingers.^ Yet, that must have been the 
way in which people ate their food in 1637. There were no forks in 

* Thomas Dudley writes in 1631 to the Countess of Lincoln saying "having 
yet no table, nor other room to write in than by the fireside upon my knee" 
(Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 305). 

* My attention has been called to the omission in the text of reference to 
the use of intoxicating liquors. Of course drunkenness was one of the troubles 
of that time. Numerous convictions are recorded for the offence, but at the 
period which I cover, all liquors were imported except strong beer. In 1630, 
Winthrop restrained the drinking of healths at his table, and so it grew Uttle 
by little to disuse (Journal, i. 37). In 1635, he speaks of drunkenness 
occasioned by people running to the ships (ibid. i. 161). 

3 I am indebted to Professor Kittredge for calling my attention to two things : 
first, the proverb "fingers were made before forks," evidence in itself that the 
knife was not used by well bred persons for conveying food to the mouth ; and 
secondly, to Chaucer's description of the dainty manner in wliich the Prioress fed 
herself, obviously with her fingers, given in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. 
Thomas Shepard in one of his sermons calls attention to the danger accompanying 
the use of the knife in cutting one's meat: "Its from the excellency of a knife to 
cut well, but to cut my finger with it when I should be cutting of my meat with it, 
ariseth not from the end of the knife, nor from the intention of him who made it " 
(Certain Select Cases Resolved, p. 7). 



38 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

this country at that time, and there were very few knives other than 
such as people carried on their persons, either clasped in the pocket, 
or in a sheath attached to a belt. There were indeed no forks in Eng- 
land in general use at that time. The first that were used in Europe 
were dainty little things, not over three or four inches in length. They 
were made of silver, having slender stems, with short prongs at the 
lower end, and evidently having for a function simply the picking up 
of the small pieces of meat after they had been cut off. The idea of 
a fork of such strength as to permit one to hold the meat while cutting 
it had not yet been conceived. It was possible, however, by using a 
spoon to steady the meat, to avoid holding it with the hands. Bearing 
in mind that wooden and pewter spoons were then in use, it will be 
seen that reliance upon the stronger of the two could only have taken 
place. Montaigne in his journey to Italy says the Swiss always 
" place as many wooden spoons with silver handles as there are guests, 
and no Swiss is ever without a knife, which he uses in taking up every- 
thing, and it is very seldom that they put their hands in their plates." * 
These hints from across the Atlantic suggest what our ancestors prob- 
ably did, but at all events, napkins are preponderant in early inven- 
tories in this country. Perhaps this preponderance may be explained 
by the absence of forks.^ 

Harvard, as a man of peace, could not himself have taken part in 
the trainings which then took place eight times a year.^ Although 
personally exempt, he must have taken an interest in the service of 
his parishioners in the militia. In the early days the Company sent 
over for their equipment corselets consisting of head pieces, gorgets, 
back pieces, breast pieces, gauntlets, and tassets, varnished all black 
with leather and buckles.* Armed with pike or snaphance each man 
was a walldng fortress and had but little to fear from the Indians, so 
long as he had the strength to bear his armor, as he wearily plodded 
through the woods and over the hills. When it came to the pursuit 
of a foe a soldier thus equipped must have been at a great disadvan- 
tage.^ We do not naturally conceive of armor-clad men in the forests 

• Montaigne's Journal, iv. 210. 

' William T. Da\-is in his Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth (p. vii^ makes 
substantially the same observations as to the preponderance of napkins. 

* Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 210. 

* Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 54. 

• f'Wc could not follow them in our Armor" (Winthrop's Journal, i. 199). 



1908] ARMOR, WEARING APPAREL, AND DRUMS 39 

of New England in the seventeenth century, but Longfellow calls up 
that association when he speaks of Miles Standish as pausing, — 

Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare. 
Hanging in shining array along the walls of his chamber — 
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus. 

These trainings must have aroused great interest in those days. 
A thousand men were reviewed in Boston by Governor Winthrop in 
1639, presumably, however, not all of them in armor, for by that time 
they had discovered the questionable value of armor in the character 
of wars that they were likely to wage, and the equipment of a trained 
soldier was defined to be in 1634 a musket, a bandolier, a rest, and 
powder and shot, pikemen to bear them as well as other soldiers.^ 
The records show, however, that armor was still in use after the date 
of this Act.^ 

If on occasions like training days, John Harvard took his wife out 
with him to witness the evolutions and watch the congregation of 
his neighbors, it was important that both he and she should be clothed 
in a subdued and unobtrusive manner, for it was forbidden to make 
or wear slashed clothes, needlework caps, bands and rails. All gold 
and silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, and beaver hats were pro- 
hibited to be bought or worn. Nor was it permissible to use lace of 
any sort upon any garment, except small edging laces.' 

The drum furnished the means of inspiriting the soldiers in these 
drills, but its use was not confined to such occasions. There were no 
bells in the Colony, and everything of a public sort was done to the 
tap of the drum.* Were the inhabitants to assemble in town meeting 
the drummer made the announcement. Though Harvard did not 
march on Sundays to the Great House in Charlestown, yet he went 
at the call of the drum. In Dorchester a town official was appointed 

* Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 125. 

' "Our men being completely armed with Corslets, muskets, bandoliers, rests 
and Swords." Head pieces are also mentioned in this account. (Capt. John 
Underhill's Newes from America, in Hart's American History told by Contem- 
poraries, p. 439.) Besides the expression, showing that the men were in armor 
— quoted in the note above — Winthrop, in another description in the same 
year, 1636, speaks of their being armed with corselets (Journal, i. 194). 

^ Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 126, 183. 

* Boston Record Commissioners' Reports, ii. 8, iv. 3. 



40 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan, 

to drive the cows to the common pasture, and it was his business to 
blow his horn along the town as he accompanied the herd to the 
pasture.* The drum and the horn served to warn people.^ 

Indentured servants were imported in great numbers, and while it 
is not probable that many of these were house servants, still it is 
possible that Harvard profited by their presence. Their time belonged 
absolutely to their masters during the term of the contract. They 
were liable to be whipped if they violated the unAvritten laws of the 
Colony and were not permitted to trade without license from their 
master. When their terms of service ran out they were at liberty to 
make new wage contracts, and Winthrop records a humorous answer 
made by one of them to his master a few years after the period under 
consideration. The master had been obliged to sell a pair of his 
oxen to meet the wages of the servant. He thereupon told the man 
that he could not retain him in his service as he did not know how 
he could pay him. "Sell more cattle," said the man. "What shall 
I do when they are gone?" "You can serve me and get them back," 
said the man.^ Although this story is placed a few years after Har- 
vard's death, it is entitled to our consideration not alone for its humor 
but also for the moral involved in the answer of the servant. The 
indentured servants of the Colony, if they persisted after the expira- 
tion of their indentures in being industrious and were economical, 
were destined to have their share of the wealth of the Colony, and 
their employers, if unwilling to work, were to see the transfer of their 
wealth from their own hands into the possession of those better en- 
titled to care for it. 

Johnson's description of Charlestown, as a place having one hun- 
dred and fifty dwelling houses, with a large market-place near the 
water side, built round with houses, comely and fair, from which 
there issued two streets lined with dwelling houses having gardens 
and orchards,"* fairly represents the possible Charlestown of 1638, 
with the exception that the trees in the orchards could hardly have 
reached such maturity as to amount to much. The meeting-house 

* Boston Record Commissioners Reports, iv. 22. 

' "lie demands of the next man lie met, what the signall of the drum ment, 
the reply was made they have as yet no Bell to call men to meeting" (Johnson's 
Wonder-working Providence, p. 103). 

^ Winthrop's Journal, ii. 220. 

* Wonder-working Providence, p. 41. 



1908] JOHN harvard's FRIENDS IN AMERICA 41 

stood in what is now known as City Square. It must have been a 
primitive affair. 

Such were the conditions of Hfe in Harvard's day, such the place 
in which he Uved, so far as we can reconstruct them from the state- 
ments and hints contained in the records and narratives at our com- 
mand. Had his Ufe here been longer we could be more certain as to 
his experiences. 

We do not know with whom Harvard was thrown when he arrived ; 
whose friendship he especially sought; from whom he received such 
social attentions as were then possible. Pride in ancestry and class 
distinctions based upon occupations were rife in those days, and even 
under the levelling pressure of mutual exposure and hardship it was 
quite probable that the son of a butcher would have been coldly re- 
ceived by those claiming the right to be classified as of gentle families. 
It would have been natural for him to turn for associates and friends, 
first to the graduates of his own College and then to those who had 
been associated with other Colleges in the University of Cambridge. 
Hooker and Stone, both Emmanuel men, had already gone to Hart- 
ford, but Thomas Shepard, an Emmanuel graduate and a man of mark 
in the Colony, was within easy reach, being then settled at Newtown. 
Zachariah Symmes, his colleague, was a Cambridge man, as was also 
John Wilson, the colleague of Cotton and the sturdy opponent of Mrs. 
Hutchinson. Cotton, perhaps the most conspicuous of the colonial 
clergymen, was a Cambridge man, a graduate of Trinity, who was 
afterward connected with Emmanuel. In view of the turbulent condi- 
tions of the politics of the colony, in which Shepard,^ Symmes, and 
Wilson were to be found among the opponents of Vane and Cotton, 
it is not conceivable that the colleague of Symmes, who was eulogized 
by Wilson and spoken of with words of tender and loving praise by 
Shepard, should have sought the friendship of Cotton. Evidently he 

* See C. F. Adams' Antinomianism (Prince Society), p. 251. Shepard did not 
take a very active part in the discussion relative to the heresy of Mrs. Hutchinson, 
and he evidently considered that he occupied a neutral opinion in the controversy, 
for he says that Newtown was "kept spotless from the contagion of opinion." 
He was, however, one of a committee which examined Mrs. Hutchinson, and al- 
though he was not violent in his opposition to her, yet he joined in a report with 
Thomas Welde which was referred to several times in the discussion. It seems 
to me therefore that he must be considered as practically taking sides in the 
matter. 



42 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

cast his lot with' those who supported Winthrop — a fact which em- 
phasizes the recognition of his independence and pubHc spirit by his 
fellow-citizens in their appointment of him in the spring of 1638 as one 
of a committee to secure a code of laws. With the above trio, how- 
ever, for sponsors. Harvard could not have lacked social attention. 
The clergy were the real leaders of the Colony. Lawyers there were 
none, and of doctors but a few.^ The society which was based upon 
intellectual cultivation, must after all have been that which was the 
most desirable. 

One other person alone among his American contemporaries has 
his name directly associated with that of Harvard, and that is Thomas 
Allen — his successor in the Charlestown pulpit. Allen served as 
executor of the will. If this instrument was duly executed by Harvard 
in ordinary form, then this appointment indicated the personal 
preference of the testator and pointed out one person at least besides 
his wife in whom he had trust and for whom he had affection. The 
fact that in the confusion of the records at that date no written will has 
been found does not seriously militate against this conclusion. 

Wilson in his elegy ^ portrays the deathbed scene : 

Not that no spouse sustained my fainting head. 
Or loving children watched my dying bed; — 
These I remembered, yet a half of all 
I gave to you who throng this hall. 

This reference to the loving children, who were remembered in the 
half of the estate, not given to the College, is the only hint that has 
ever been discovered of the existence of any family left by Harvard 
other than his widow, and adds one more difficulty to the attempt to 
describe his career.' 

* Cotton Mather is authority for the statement that the Clergy had "eminent 
skill in physick." He says, "it is well known that until two hundred years ago, 
physick in England was no profession distinct from divinity." Most of Charles 
Chauncy's sons, six in all, were, he says, practicers of physic as well as clergymen 
(Magnalia, i. 475). 

* Magnalia, ii. 33. 

' It is known that Mrs. Harvard bore children by her second husband. It is 
probable that Wilson was thinking of these children when he composed his elegy. 
The form of the elegy, an address by Harvard to an assembly of graduates, in- 
volves the idea of the lapse of many years after Harvard's death before such a 



1908] WHAT INFLUENCE CAUSED THE BEQUEST 43 

It is evident that if we could identify the leading spirit in the at- 
tempt to secure the estabUshment of a College in New England, with 
some person who was probably a friend of Harvard, we should have 
good reason to believe that in this person we had found the one who 
influenced him to make the bequest to the College. The entry in the 
Record in 1636,* was simply an agreement to the proposition that 
there should be a college, in aid of which the sum of £200 would be 
given when the site was fixed upon, and £200 more when the building 
should be finished. The vagueness of the Act was slightly reduced 
by the deliberate statement that the site and the character of the build- 
ing must be determined by the next Court. No name is in any way 
associated with this legislation, and there is no hint as to the person 
who was forcing action on the subject. Whoever it was, however, did 
not permit the matter to rest here, but next year, on the 15th of Nov- 
ember,^ secured the adoption of Newtown as the site for the College 
and on the 20th,' through the appointment of a working committee, 
brought matters into promising shape. This committee was composed 
of the Governor, the Deputy Governor, the Treasurer, three Assistants, 
and six clergymen.* Of these latter Thomas Shepard was one. His 
influence in securing the adoption of Newtown as the site of the 
College is set forth by Cotton Mather in the following words : 

And it was with a respect unto this vigilancy and the enlightening and 
powerful ministry of Mr Shepard, that when the foundation of a College 
was to be laid, Cambridge, rather than any other place, was pitched upon 
to be the seat of that happy seminary.' 

gathering could have taken place. Wilson died in 1667 at the age of seventy- 
nine, and if we allow an interval of at least twenty-five years to have elapsed after 
Harvard's death before the elegy was composed, it would make him seventy-five 
years of age when it was written. This may perhaps account for this expression 
in the elegy, as confusion of memory on his part. That tWs must have been so, 
becomes apparent when we take into consideration the date of Harvard's mar- 
riage, April 19, 1636. 

* Massachusetts Colony Records, i. 183. 
» Ibid. i. 208. 

» Ibid. i. 217. 

* The close resemblance of this committee to the body to whom was entrusted 
the care and regulation of the affairs of the College in 1642, has led encyclo- 
psedists to record that members of the committee were at that time appointed 
Overseers of Harvard College. 

« Magnalia, i. 386. 



44 THE COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS [Jan. 

Shepard himself says : 

He [the Lord] was pleased to direct the harts of the Magistrates 
(then keeping Court ordinarily in our towne because of their stirs in 
Boston) to think of erecting a Schoole or College, and that speedily to be 
a nursery of knowledge in these deserts and supply for posterity, and be- 
cause this towne (then called Newtown) was hereto [by] God's great care 
and goodness kept spotless from the contagion of opinion, therefore at 
the desire of some of the Deputies of the Court having got Mr Eaton to 
attend the Schoole, the Court for that and sundry other reasons deter- 
mined to erect the College here.* 

Making all due allowances for Shepard's modesty, one might infer 
from his presence on the committee the influence that determined the 
selection of the site, even though Cotton Mather had not come to our 
aid. It is plain, however, from all this, that Shepard must have been 
a living force in settling " speedily" — to use his own language — these 
preliminary questions. His appreciative estimate of Harvard has 
something personal in its ring and compels the suggestion that he 
may have been the one to direct Harvard's thoughts toward the 
College. 

Concerning the details of the one great act in Harvard's life which 
has made him famous we know absolutely nothing. There is no 
trace of the will which contained his immortal bequest. There 
is no certainty even that there was any written instrument. The 
lack of evidence as to the details of the bequest led the writer of a 
note to say, "John Harvard seems to be the ' Melchisedec ' of the first 
age of the Colony of Massachusetts. He is known to us only as a 
'priest of the most High God,' and as one who 'gave gifts.'" ^ 

Quite recently an Englishman has made an attempt, as he ex- 
presses it, to visualize the life and character of John Harvard. It may 
seem strange that Harvard graduates should have left the performance 
of this grateful task to a foreigner, but it must not be forgotten that the 
accretion of facts which have made the work possible has been slow 
and at best does not amount to much. Perhaps, on the whole, it is 

* Autobiography, p. 64. 

* 5 Massachusetts Historical Collections, v. 447, note. George E. Ellis was one 
of the committee in charge of the publication of this volume and doubtless is 
responsible for this witty and appropriate cjuotation. 



1908] JOHN harvard's FAME 45 

well that this testimony should have been borne to the fact that the 
care of John Harvard's reputation does not belong alone to Harvard 
graduates, or even to Americans, but is the world's possession. At all 
events, we must be grateful to Mr. Shelley for the graceful and charm- 
ing work which he has performed. In conclusion let me quote a few 
words from his preface and from his closing chapter. The preface 
opens as follows : " Among the names graven on the foundation stone 
of American History none is so deeply carved, or is so rich in promise 
of endurance as that of John Harvard." In his last chapter, which 
is entitled "The praise of John Harvard," after alluding to Harvard's 
contemporaries whose fame he and they probably believed to be not 
only better established in the present but also as having far better 
claim upon the future for endurance than his own, Mr. Shelley goes 
on to say: "Yet, while even the greatest of these are known to few 
save the diligent student of history, while their Court honors have 
turned to dust, and their achievements are lost in oblivion, the dying 
inspiration ^ of John Harvard has given him an immortality which 
gathers brighter radiance with every passing generation." 

How true this is we all fully appreciate. The shadowy personality 
of Harvard as we have seen almost evades research. His final rest- 
ing place is unknown, but his renown pervades the world. His 
fame has its foundation in the gratitude of the graduates of the 
University which bears his name. His glory is ever to be found in the 
work which that great institution has accomplished in the past and 
which it is destined to perform in the future. 



* The assumption that Harvard's will was nuncupative may be correct, but it 
does not rest upon direct evidence. 



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